As in other areas, China’s laws of big numbers are transforming the world of tourism,and not just in New Zealand.

The Germany-based China Outbound Research Institute calculates that more than 150 million mainland Chinese travellers ventured overseas last year – the largest number from any nation. And this is predicted to grow beyond 200 million annually in the next five years. Admittedly, 68 million of the present total were travelling to Hong Kong and Taiwan, but that still meant 83 million travelled more intrepidly – outnumbering the 83 million German overseas travellers, and the 68 million from the US.

And this is of course just the start of the wave. At present, about 4.3 billion holidays are taken every year by Chinese people within China itself – around 3 billion of these over the coming Lunar New Year break. As many of these join the aspiring middle classes, it must be a certainty that they will soon be converting those domestic holidays into international ones.